• DrRatso@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    The way I see it, thought as we experience is not a property of the processes of the brain, but rather a consequence or a side product of neurobiological processes. Consciousness (as a conglomerate of present moment qualia) is neither explained by mechanical interactions nor dialectics, we can only guess at it. That said, under either way of materialism it has to map onto some state of the brain / organism that possesses it. So there is a discreet neurological state that corresponds to a thought within our conscious experience. But conscious experience has to be a consequence of that state.

    When I say thought can not influence the material, what I mean is, yes, the sum total of brain activation that we perceive as consciousness obviously has an effect on what we do, there are neurons activating, modulating, inhibiting that lead to downstream effects. And there is a sequence of material interactions that lead to that particular state of neuron activation and a set sequence that will follow. So the brain activity has control in the way you put it, in the sense that the activation pattern we see now, directly causes the next, which cascedes on and on. And thus we lift hands, write books, create social revolution and land on the moon. It comes back to atoms just chugging along.

    However the counterpart thought we experience within consciousness is simply a consequent phenomenon, some kind of representation of this activation pattern. The conscious (experience of) thought has no power and is predetermined, simply representing a state of brain activation. And thus no actual control is to be found. Theres is simply a set of circumstances, a neurobiological calculation and a set output. Choice, intent and will are things that only exist as experiental approximations of underlying processes. Choice is not a thing that meaningfully exists in the material world, it is simply a complicated way of saying things could have unfolded differently under different circumstances.

    We only have control in the sense that we create change in the universe, but then we are simply microscopic a part of an ever-changing universe, it is simply that the universe is changing. This is predicted simply by thermodynamics, there is no need to involve more complex theories to explain this at a fundamental level.

    I’m not even sure how dialectical materialsm ties in here all that well, the articles mostly just make slight off-handed remarks about consciousness and overall the theory seems to mostly deal with social organisation. I have to say it reads to me like a bunch of truisms thrown together. Maybe my reading is too brief, but I fail to see where it offers much of meaning.